by Peter Styles
I chuckled, maybe a little awkward too. I didn’t want anything to drink…didn’t want any food. “I’m not hungry or thirsty, Vance. All I want is you.”
Putting it into words had an immediate effect on my body. Blood rushed to my groin. Every nerve ending I possessed awakened with the memory of how Vance felt pressed against me, and I needed that so badly again that I nearly groaned.
Vance raked a hand through his already mussed hair while his gaze skittered around the room. At last, those bright blue eyes focused on me like a stroke of silk along my skin.
“I want you too, Wyatt,” he murmured. His jaw firmed. “It’s just that I don’t want to be your secret. I’m not saying I want to put up a billboard to announce we’re messing around again…It’s not that at all.”
He stopped, biting his lower lip. The pain in his blue eyes made me ache with shame. Before I could respond, he continued in a rush, “I just don’t think I can deal with us starting something and then calling it off again. Not like before.”
I had to get it out on the table. “You mean me disappearing.”
He nodded, pressing his lips together. I crossed over to him, stopping just a breath away. “I care about you Vance. I always have, so I’m not gonna lie. I can’t give you an answer right now about what’s down the road. That’s selfish, I know. But right now, in this moment, I need you. I need to feel connected and cared for. You were always so good at that.”
Vance’s arms still hung at his sides, his gaze shifted away from me. He was going to say no. I would be out in the cold. Alone. And it was my fault. I had turned my back on him twelve years ago, walked away and denied everything we’d shared. I wasn’t going to do that now. I had to fight for this.
“Vance, I know I have no right to ask you be with me no strings attached, but I am here, and I am asking.” I blew out a breath in frustration. “God, I wanted to be able to do this right—give you the right words, make you feel good—but I’m fucking it up. If you want me to go, I’ll understand.”
Vance made some sound—a moan, a growl—I wasn’t sure, but then he reached for me, tugging me into his arms. In an instant, everything I had worried about, every gnawing feeling of loneliness I had felt disappeared. Without conscious thought, I cupped his face in my hands, tilting his head back for my kiss.
The silk of his lips stirred a hunger I had forced away, only allowing it to come out in my dreams and fantasies. But this was real and so much better.
“Sweet Jesus, Vance, I missed you so damn much,” I muttered against his mouth before devouring him. His tongue stroked the inside of my mouth, thrusting in a rhythm my hips wanted to match.
Twelve years ago, Vance had offered comfort and awakened a passion I’d never considered, a passion I hadn’t been ready to accept. I wasn’t sure even now that was where this would lead. All I did know was I had to have him. I trailed my mouth along his neck, licking my way down to the open collar of his dress shirt before lightly nipping the tender skin where neck and shoulder met.
Vance’s hands stroked me—my arms, my butt, and then back up over my chest. Everywhere he touched, warmth seeped into me, thawing out emotions I’d kept frozen since I walked away from him. I groaned, pressing closer, needing to feel him.
“Need to feel your skin. Let me undress you.” I tugged at his shirt, pulling the tails from his dress pants.
“Yes,” Vance nearly groaned the word. “You too, Wyatt.”
“In a minute.” My focus was solely on getting his shirt open and off his shoulders. Maturity had filled out the lankiness from before and I delighted in being able to run my palms over smooth pecs and his lean torso. “So good, Vance. Need you.”
I couldn’t formulate any more coherent thoughts. All I wanted was right in front of me, trembling with the same anticipation coursing through my veins. When my hand grasped his belt buckle, our gazes locked.
“Is this what you want?” I asked.
Vance’s flat nipples were hard and tight as he nodded. So tempting. So impossible to resist. I leaned in so I could flick my tongue over one and then the other. It was like the first time with him. No. Better. So much better.
“I can’t wait any longer, Wyatt,” Vance panted. “Fuck. Get my clothes off. Get yours off. I need to touch you.”
There was no more slow. My patience was gone. The frantic tugging Vance was doing on my clothes told me he felt the same. Shoes got kicked away, pants dropped to the floor and shirts flew across the room. Down to boxer briefs, I couldn’t wait any longer and pulled him into me, panting as I felt the press of his cock next to mine. My heart pounded and I pulled him in even tighter, my fingers digging into his ass cheeks.
“Missed you,” I said on a groan as I kissed him again. I wanted to be gentle, but too much time had passed. My body was demanding so much more. “Where’s your bedroom?”
Vance’s gaze was hooded, his lips a little swollen from our kisses as he smiled and took my hand. “This way.”
We fell onto the wide bed, my fingers already tugging at the waistband of his briefs. When I brushed the silky skin of his dick, Vance gasped, his body beginning to shake.
“You want it?” I growled.
“So bad.”
“Lie back.” He did as I said, his blue eyes watching as I tugged down his briefs and freed his thick shaft. A drop of cum beaded at the tip. I licked my lips. How long had I dreamt of doing this? I crawled up the bed, running my arms beneath his thighs as I leaned down to lick that tantalizing pearl.
“Wyatt!” Vance’s fingers grasped at my hair. I took the head of his dick in my mouth and swirled my tongue around it. Vance’s hips shot off the bed, and I let him slide deeper, taking him down the back of my throat. So damn good to have him there, his body shaking and moans of pleasure filling the air around us.
“I can’t…I’m not…” Vance writhed beneath me. “You’re gonna make me come!”
I pulled off, running my tongue over his flat belly. “Yes, but maybe not just yet.”
I scooted back so I could strip off my underwear. When I turned back to Vance, he had his arms held out to me. Oh, yeah, that is so where I wanted to be. Lying on top of him skin to skin—it was what I remembered most, what I had missed. Our bodies entwined and rubbing together while he held me tight, heart to heart. My throat thickened with emotions that threatened to overwhelm me.
“Wyatt?” Vance murmured. “You okay, baby?”
I nodded, unable to speak. As I stretched out on top of him and felt the hot slickness of his skin against me, I sighed and relaxed. “God, I’ve missed you.”
“Me too. I want you inside me.”
“I—I don’t have a condom.”
“Check the nightstand.”
I found what I needed there, my hand shaking as I covered my cock and opened up the lube. Then Vance’s hands were there, taking over as he coated my shaft and nuzzled the side of my neck. I grabbed his jaw so I could look into his bright gaze.
“I want to see you.”
Vance’s eyes filled as he nodded. I had only ever taken him from behind before, still too unsure of what I was doing and feeling. But I knew now. I wanted this man more than I wanted my next breath. He lay back, welcoming me with open arms. I found his opening, stroked my tip around it to ease my way and slowly pushed inside. God, he was tight.
“You okay? I’m not hurting you, am I?”
Vance shook his head. I pushed deeper until our bodies touched and I could kiss him again before I set up an easy rhythm with my hips. He was rocking my world—again—and I had no idea where we would end up. All I knew was I had to have him in my heart and in my bed.
Twelve years was a long time to be alone. Vance’s heart beat against mine, his legs holding me as I filled him. I wanted it to last forever but knew it couldn’t.
I pulled him up to straddle my lap, and wrapped one arm around him, grasping his ass with the other to lift him up and lower him down onto me slow. Each time, his head rolled and he moaned for me. His hi
ps rocked in time with mine, meeting me with each thrust. His lips found my mouth and breathed in every grunt of effort, every sigh of relief that I let out when I buried myself inside him. It had been so long, and I’d wanted this so badly, that when his ass clenched around me as if it didn’t want to let me leave, I felt the oncoming storm sweeping in fast.
“Gotta finish, Vance.” I spit on my hand and reached between us to squeeze his cock tight and stroke him slow, just like I remembered. His body shook, and he pressed his forehead against mine, his mouth open and panting.
“Jesus... Wyatt, you... I’m gonna... fuck, keep going baby... fuck me deep and make me... oh, fuck, Wyatt!”
I lasted only until I felt the first splash of his cum against my stomach, paired with the sudden pressure around my cock as his body squeezed me, then started pulsing as he gushed into my hand. Everything in me tightened then broke free. I shouted with pleasure. Something that felt this good couldn’t be wrong. This time I wouldn’t fuck it up, wouldn’t hurt Vance. I’d find a way. I had to.
11
Vance
I stared out the picture window of The Sailing Street Kitchen, wondering if it was okay for me to be here now; as if everyone might somehow smell Wyatt on me.
Upton’s voice interrupted my worrying. “Dude, am I going to have to kill you off in my next book?”
I shook my head and focused in on him. He was facing me across the trendy café table.
“Sorry. A lot on my mind.” Yeah, like what a huge mistake I had made. What had I been thinking to just hop right back into bed with Wyatt? Of course, he had to leave right after so he could pick up Tempy. After all, he was ‘working late’. Like working my ass while I fell back in love with him like a total idiot.
“You’ve barely touched your coffee,” Upton pointed out. “And just so we’re clear, you’re supposed to be the practical one—teacher and all. I’m the creative daydreamer, and I don’t think I can switch roles. It would be a disaster.”
I blinked, taking in Upton’s messy hair, which always seemed to be at odds with his cleanly shaven cheeks. He’d invited me out to Saturday brunch, suggesting the diner, but I was feeling fragile and uncertain and didn’t want to show up at the restaurant Wyatt spent most of his time in; so we’d ended up in The Sailing Street Kitchen instead.
Upton leaned in. Despite his claim to daydreaming, there was nothing in his sharp gaze to make me think he missed a single detail.
“I didn’t sleep well last night.” I didn’t add that I’d tossed and turned as my brain fantasized all sorts of scenarios—good and bad—of how Wyatt back in my life would work. Best-case scenario was hot sex with the hottest guy in town, maybe once a week when Tempy could stay with a friend. Worst case was Wyatt walking away again. Either way it was freaking me out.
Upton pursed his lips and narrowed his eyes as if he could see my thoughts swirling around me. “You know, Vance, I’m good at keeping confidences if you need to get something off your chest.”
“It’s a long story. Like twelve years.”
Upton’s brow wrinkled. “Twelve years? What is it, some kind of childhood trauma?”
“I was an adult, thank you but... yeah, kind of.”
My friend’s gaze grew serious. “Oh. Shit, I’m sorry. Is it... anything you want to talk about? You know I’m here, if you need me.”
“If I told you, you’d think I’m utterly pathetic and weak willed, and possibly completely insane.”
“Absolutely not,” he assured me. “It is my official duty as your friend to offer succor and acceptance, no matter what. Unless you killed someone or something.”
I rolled my eyes. “I didn’t kill anyone,” I groaned. But it did feel like if I didn’t tell someone, this secret was going to leak out of my ears from the pressure. “Okay. Look, twelve years ago, I hooked up with Wyatt Worth. Right after his wife died. In retrospect, it was all so irresponsible, but I was young and he was hot and he was so... sad. Now that I’m older and mostly mature, you know, I can see how obviously wrong it all was. But at the time…” I sighed. “It was a fucking fairytale… a sad one, but sweet. It got pretty serious over the course of about six months, and I helped him out with his daughter, and it was kind of like being a family. I mean, that is what we were. At least it seemed that way to my nineteen-year-old self.
“And then, very suddenly, he one day just kind of... stopped. Said he needed some time to think about things, and a few days later I went to his place and he broke it off.” My heart ached fresh, like it had just happened. Stupid. “It broke me into a million pieces. He wouldn’t discuss it, just said that people were starting to talk and he couldn’t risk putting Tempy through the fallout. My fairytale turned on a dime into a tragedy, zero warning.”
Upton glanced at the waitress and pointed at our coffee cups. After she’d topped them off, he arched a brow at me. “I hesitate to point out to you that traditionally fairytales rarely had happy endings. That happily ever after pablum is a relatively recent invention.”
“Don’t get bogged down in my literary misinterpretations. The point is—fuck—Wyatt and I hooked up again yesterday.” Just putting it into words made my stomach lurch. I tapped the spoon on the table absently, my gaze once again going out the window.
Worthington’s quaint downtown was always busy on Saturday mornings. Out-of-towners liked our greenways and shops. Natives knew they needed to get their errands done before people closed up shop in the early afternoon.
“And now...” I sighed and tossed the spoon onto the table. “I kind of regret it but at the same time all I can think about is what might happen now. Like we could get it all back and it’ll all be good again, like it was. I mean it was one time, it’s not like we made promises. In fact we very explicitly did not make promises but it just felt... real, you know?”
Upton bobbed his head slowly, lips thin, eyes focused and a tad bit critical if I was reading him right. “Okay.”
I frowned at him. “Okay? What does that mean?”
He winced as he leaned back in his chair and threaded his fingers together. “Honestly? Honey, what I hear coming from you sounds very much as if you’re about to indulge in some misguided masochism. You don’t need to punish yourself. You know that, right? You stumbled into a relationship with Wyatt before. Are you really sure you want to willingly walk back in—knowing the previous outcome?”
And there it was, exactly the doubts I had been having summed up in one succinct sentence.
“How do you do that?” I had to ask.
“Do what?”
“Find the real point of the situation and sum it up so perfectly.”
Upton shrugged. “It seems obvious.”
“Look, I know it’s totally avoidable, but there’s just something about him. You’d understand if you had seen him with Temperance when she was a baby.” I pulled out my wallet, flipped through a couple of things and pulled out a worn picture I had kept all these years. It showed Wyatt asleep on the couch, baby Tempy carefully cradled in his big hand, her little fist resting trustingly against his chest. I had nearly worn it out in the first couple years taking it out and looking at it. Since then, carrying it had become a habit. I handed it to Upton. He was a dad. Surely he would understand.
“His eyes would just light up when he held her in his arms,” I told him. “He was always so careful with her, and when she had trouble getting to sleep, he would lay her just like that on his chest. More often than not, he fell asleep before she did. He was exhausted trying to be both mother and father.”
I pushed my plate to one side. “I fell in love with him for a lot of reasons, Upton. A big one was the fact he was so clearly a wonderful father.”
“Well, I know a thing or two about that. Sexy dad is definitely a real thing. I was always getting hit on when it was just Carter and me. Sure, it was mainly by single women, but still…it worked for Tristan too, obviously.” Upton tilted his head. “Well, and for Wyatt’s brother, Austin. Maybe you should talk to
him for some advice about Wyatt.”
“Absolutely not. I am not about to invade Wyatt’s family life.” It was way too reminiscent of some scary stalker movie. Or just pathetic. “He’s laid out his terms, and I figure I can either accept them or move on for good.”
The waitress dropped off the check. I started to grab it, but Upton beat me to it. “I’ll buy. Call it remuneration for a morning spent finding out that perfect Vance has a dark and secret past.”
We parted ways outside The Sailing Street Kitchen. After wandering around this part of town for another hour thinking about the total mess my personal life was in, I drove back home. Once inside, I tried to concentrate on some of the work I had brought home with me, but it didn’t do any good.
A faint scent of Wyatt’s aftershave still lingered in the living room, and the bedroom just served as a very potent visual reminder of how the two of us had spent the previous evening.
He hadn’t taken off right away. No wham-bam-I’m-outta-here for Wyatt. No, he had held me in his arms and kissed me as though he wished he never had to leave. But it had been that way before, right up until the time Wyatt had simply vanished from my life. At nineteen, I had been crushed. I hadn’t lied when I told Upton it had been like a fairytale.
Here was this handsome older man who seemed to see me in a way my own family never had. To them, I was always the afterthought. He hadn’t treated me as a kid. From the very beginning, he’d listened as if he valued my opinions. My own experiences with nieces and nephews had also given me some insight into caring for a newborn that Wyatt had desperately needed. We’d been a team, and it had felt so good to be with him in that.
Being with him again drudged up all those well-worn memories like they were new. Like the first time he’d made a move on me, surprising me in more than a few ways. He’d called long after I had gone to bed, after I’d offered to come around and help him out once in a while, if he wanted. Baby Temperance was inconsolable that night. He couldn’t stop her crying and was afraid something was really wrong. Or course, I had driven over there. I was more than a little in love with him already. Wyatt had greeted me at the door, his eyes red-rimmed, a squalling Tempy cradled in his arms.